


tell him with your hands shaking

by hammersandstrings



Category: Glee
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, Translation Available, except it's 8 but who needs math anyway, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:30:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hammersandstrings/pseuds/hammersandstrings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight times Sebastian told Kurt he loved him, and one time Kurt said it back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell him with your hands shaking

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on [tumblr](http://smythed.tumblr.com/post/53858666593/eight-times-sebastian-told-kurt-he-loved-him-and), based on (and title from) [this](http://chickenshit.tumblr.com/post/37446542890).
> 
> [now translated into russian](http://ficbook.net/readfic/1768989) by [raccoon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Raccoon/pseuds/Raccoon)!

_i._

If anyone asks, it’s all because Sebastian’s favorite nightclub is having a two-for-one drinks night. He usually doesn’t get this drunk on nights out, but a hard day at work, a miserable computer science test, and a week of wrestling with this _feeling_ in his chest every time he sees Kurt warrants an extra bit of liquid relaxation to wash the stress away.

Except it’s been a long time since he’s been properly drunk, and there is a glaring difference between seventeen-year-old Sebastian’s alcohol tolerance and twenty-one-year-old Sebastian’s alcohol tolerance. Whereas a little drunkenness used to loosen him up and make him more apt to dance with a bunch of hot strangers, now he’s slumped against the bar, forehead resting against the cool but probably filthy glass countertop, cursing the thrum of loud music with pounding bass lines and the smell of sweat and cheap cologne that fills the room. The bartender, a sweet-looking woman in her late twenties with a nose ring and half a shaved head, nudges his shoulder lightly and passes him a glass of water.

“Need me to call you a cab, honey?”

Sebastian lifts his head, squinting to focus on her face. She’s frowning slightly, though her eyes look fondly amused, and she’s got one thumb pointing behind her shoulder at the phone on the wall. Sebastian considers the offer, and really, he should take her up on it, but his foggy, drunk brain doesn’t agree, assuring him that the right idea would be to call Kurt because _certainly_ the best friend he has confusing feelings for is the right person to take care of him when he’s shitfaced at 2:30 in the morning.

He shakes his head, regretting it when the nausea comes, and slurs, “M’bes’ friend,” as he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, scrolls to the right contact with fumbling fingers, and slides the phone across the counter to the bartender. She blinks at the screen a few times before sighing and pressing the call button.

“Hi, is this… Kurt? Yes, yes, he’s fine, just very drunk and asked me to call you. We’re at Chaotic on Christopher Street. Ten minutes? Oh no, don’t worry, I’ll keep my eye on him for you. Thank you.”

She hands the phone back to Sebastian, regarding him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. “Ten minutes. You so much as move from this bar, I think this poor kid will whoop your ass, hammered or not.”

Sebastian nods, accepting the phone she hands back to him and struggling to slip it back into his pocket before he reaches out for the glass of water and holds it to his overwarm cheek. The next ten minutes consist of squeezing his eyes shut to avoid the harsh glare of disco lights and the fluorescent blue and pink glow of the sign above the shelves of alcohol in front of him, sipping slowly at his water while he tries in vain to sober up. He’s nodding off while sitting up when he feels a hand run up and down his back over his shirt, the familiar and unwelcome sensation he’s come to associate with being around Kurt rising in his stomach at the touch.

“Come on, dumbass, let’s get you out of here.” Kurt’s voice sounds miles away, though it’s murmured right against the shell of his ear. Sebastian clings tightly to his waist, legs failing him by turning to jelly the second he tries to stand up, breathing in the smell of his body wash and laundry detergent.

“Y’smell like sunshine and _spriiing breezes_ ,” Sebastian slurs as he’s manhandled into a taxi.

“Yeah, well it’s nearly three in the morning and you caught me while I was _sleeping_ , rather contentedly might I add, on freshly washed sheets, it’s your lucky day.” Kurt gets in the cab after him, buckling into the seat behind the driver and patting his lap so Sebastian can lay his head down on it. “You realize it’s Thursday and you have work tomorrow, yes? Why are you out getting hammered?”

Sebastian doesn’t answer for a while, reveling in the soothing feeling of Kurt’s fingers brushing through his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp. “The _worst_ ,” he drawls finally. “CS test kicked my _ass_ and m’boss ‘s a self-righ-r-r-r’teous _dooouche_ .”

“He is,” Kurt agrees. “I know your dad got you the job and all, but I don’t see why you just don’t quit and find a different one. Even your old gig at Pinkberry’s gotta be better than being that jerk’s receptionist.”

“Hahahahaha yeah right,” Sebastian laughs humorlessly. “No more worky talky. I didn’t dance with _aaanyone_ t’night, tell me I’m pretty because I’m sad.”

When he sobers up, he’ll want to slap himself in the face for talking such nonsense, but as of right now, it’s calming to feel Kurt’s hands petting his hair and hear him chuckle, “Prettiest drunk princess in all of the land. They’ll build marble statues in your honor, beautifully carved, strewn in undignified positions on museum floors all across the nation.”

They get out at Kurt’s apartment because it’s closer, and Sebastian’s legs are beginning to function normally, but he still leans into Kurt’s side because he still can’t walk a straight line on his own. The elevator is rickety and slow, but they take it anyway to avoid any mishaps on the stairs, right up to Kurt’s door and inside, where Sebastian drops to the couch and Kurt disappears into the kitchen, emerging with a bottle of pink Gatorade.

“Drink this and don’t puke on my couch,” he instructs as he sits down. Sebastian immediately crawls over to grab the bottle and rest his head back in Kurt’s lap, shifting and blinking expectantly up at Kurt until there are hands in his hair again.

“I love yooou,” he purrs at the touch. “So much. Looovey lovey love you.”

Kurt doesn’t say anything back, but it doesn’t matter because the moment Sebastian has finished the bottle of Gatorade, he’s asleep.

After the tiff with his boss yesterday, there’s no possible way for Sebastian to skip work on Friday without being fired, so he goes into the office in the same outfit, a little less wrinkled because somehow Kurt managed to rid him of his button-up to iron it before leaving for school, but feeling no less shameful for coming in wearing yesterday’s clothes. The ringing of phones all morning triggers his headache big time, and he spends his lunch break with his head in the toilet, puking his guts out as all of the memories of his drunken idiocy come back to him.

Namely telling Kurt he loved him, which is a new thing, one that he hopes Kurt either doesn’t remember or was slurred so badly that it didn’t register. Surely Kurt’s boyfriend, an airheaded dancer named Ashton who a) highly dislikes Sebastian, and b) isn’t good enough for Kurt anyway so fuck him with a rubber hose, wouldn’t be pleased with that.

As he’s packing up his desk in the last few minutes before he can finally leave to go home, Sebastian’s ignored cell phone vibrates in the top drawer where he’d shoved it after discovering the screen was far too bright to play games in his lap earlier in the day.

 **_Kurt (4:56 PM)_ ** _You still up for our usual café stop, Sleeping Drunky? First hangover coffee’s on me._

No mention of his stupid drunken babbling, so Sebastian hopes and prays that he’s still in the clear.

 **_Sebastian (4:59 PM)_ ** _taking you up on that, fairy sobermother_

* * *

_ii._

He’s contemplating the merits of eating a Snack Pack chocolate pudding cup for dinner versus going down to the market on the corner to pick up real food when the phone rings, Kurt’s contact photo poking its tongue out at him from the little iPhone screen, which isn’t unwelcome, but certainly unexpected. Kurt is supposed to be having a romantic dinner at home with Ashton, something he’s been planning for two weeks to finally drop the _“I love you”_ bomb on him. (At the first mention of the plan, Sebastian had wanted to comment _“or you could wait until you’re drunk and falling asleep on his lap,”_ but Kurt still hasn’t mentioned that night, so he doesn’t want to chance it.)

“Yo,” he answers, struggling to pin the phone between his ear and shoulder as he rummages through the dishwasher, looking for a suitably clean spoon. “I thought you were having dinner with long, pale, and only-sort-of-handsome-if-he-doesn’t-speak.”

“Hm?” Kurt sounds confused by the abrupt greeting, but he chuckles and lets out a sigh. “Oh, Ash got held up at rehearsal. Apparently there’s a really bad accident outside of the theater so it’s impossible to drive, and he left his wallet in his apartment so he doesn’t have money or his Metro card. I told him we’ll reschedule to his day off next week, I think I messed up the cake anyway.”

A likely story, Sebastian thinks, peeking over the kitchen sink to look at the street below the window. He lives not two blocks from the theater Ashton’s dance troupe rehearses at and the traffic is running the same as usual: a little crowded, but nothing major. He’s seen worse during dead hours in Los Angeles. Surely if the accident was bad enough that Ashton couldn’t drive, the cars would be at a standstill, honking impatiently, not passing relatively quickly.

“You don’t even sound pissed. You got mad at me for cancelling karaoke night two months ago when my sister was in _labor_ .”

He can hear the noncommittal shrug in Kurt’s voice when he answers, “Like I said, I messed up the cake, too much filling, not enough cake itself. Also you didn’t tell me your sister was having the baby until _after_ I got annoyed and then I felt bad and sent her a bouquet, thank you very much. Anyway, I have ingredients that will go bad if I don’t use them this weekend, wanna come over? I’ve got pasta and wine.”

Sebastian stares at the pudding cup in his hand and doesn’t even wait to answer, “Yeah, be right there.”

Kurt’s place is a twenty-minute subway ride away, a dinky studio apartment with a view of the Hudson that Sebastian didn’t get to appreciate when he was plastered and passed out, but now watches as Kurt putters about the kitchen, taking vegetables out of the fridge and spices from the cupboard above the stove. He clears his throat and beans Sebastian in the back of the head with a slice of mushroom, glaring harmlessly when he turns around.

“I’m not trying to woo you here, help me cook,” Kurt snaps. When Sebastian joins him in the kitchen, he instructs, “Start the chicken, I hate sautéing.”

Sebastian adds that it’s so easy a caveman could do it, but Kurt just rolls his eyes and leans over to turn the music up on his laptop, shaking his hips distractingly to the beat while dicing tomatoes. Sebastian glances over his shoulder every so often, partially to peek because he’s only human, but mostly because Kurt is uncharacteristically quiet while he slices and dices and mixes the pasta sauce. The most noise he makes other than the knife scraping the cutting board comes from the wine bottle he keeps unceremoniously taking long drinks out of and clunking back down to the counter.

“Kurt,” Sebastian starts, “you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m not mad,” Kurt insists. “I’m just… I’m disappointed, okay? I put a lot of effort into this and Ash couldn’t even borrow a few bucks off a friend for the ride.”

The thought occurs to tell Kurt that the whole accident excuse was a lie, but Sebastian bites his tongue and forces out, “I don’t know, Kurt, I don’t have insight into the puny mind of your wet noodle boyfriend, but maybe he’s got a reason.”

“Yeah,” Kurt mumbles. His voice is disbelieving still, but he shrugs it off anyway and nudges Sebastian aside. “Move your ass, this needs to go in the pan.”

Of course, Sebastian literally starts moving his ass, shaking his hips the same way Kurt had been before, now grabbing his hand and forcing him to dance along. Kurt nearly loses half of the tomatoes on the cutting board, but they make it into the pan safely before he succumbs to the pressure and spins beneath Sebastian’s arm.

“You’re an idiot,” Kurt laughs, but he dances all the same, twirling his way back to the stove to boil the pasta.

“I believe the term is ‘dancing fool,’ now keep it moving.”

They dance for the time it takes for the food to finish and they keep on dancing while they eat, Kurt half-tipsily shimmying against Sebastian’s side, singing along to the music and laughing every time Sebastian sneaks an arm low around his waist to dip him or spin together. It feels more comfortable between them than it has since Ash came into the picture, almost like it did when it was just the two of them against the world, so comfortable that Sebastian can’t even control his mouth.

“I love you—” His heart stops, Kurt’s eyebrow raises, and _ohgodno_ , this isn’t happening. He is Sebastian Smythe, he doesn’t accidentally blurt love confessions in the middle of impromptu cheer-up dance parties, so he pretends he’d paused mid-sentence to hiccup and finishes, “—r recipe for this pasta, email it to me?”

He’s out of the woods for now, but he can’t help but catch the way Kurt eyeballs him suspiciously for the remainder of the evening.

* * *

_iii._

Kurt shows up in Sebastian’s doorway a week later, soaked from the rain with bloodshot eyes.

“Ash broke up with me,” he says numbly. “I told him I loved him and he told me that I was a nice guy and we should see other people.”

Sebastian gives him a change of clothes, makes him tea with honey, and lets him cry it out on the couch while Chai, the little cream-colored cat his sister gave him when she developed an allergy late in her pregnancy, curls up between them, alternating between daintily licking her paws and rubbing her cheek against Kurt’s knee through the material of his pants.

“I know it wasn’t, like, true love headed to the altar,” he sniffles, all cried out and beginning to calm, “but I really did love him. He made me happy. I guess that’s not the greatest reason to be in love with someone, but… I don’t know. Please insult him so I feel better about this.”

“He has a pencil neck,” Sebastian says. “His nose is so pointy that sometimes when you two kissed, I feared for your eyesight. And someone really needs to tell him that 2004 called and they want their floppy black emo hair back. Also I bet he has a small dick.”

Kurt snorts out a laugh, leaning to the side so his head falls against Sebastian’s shoulder. Chai meows discontentedly and scampers away before his side has time to crush her butt.

“His dick really is not an impressive size.”

When Kurt smiles so big at his own confession that his teeth are bared, Sebastian knows he’ll be okay. Kurt’s a fighter, he’s never met a heartbreak that he didn’t face head-on and fight against with a vengeance.

He glances down to see Kurt lifting his head and glancing up at him, and without a word, they kiss gently, just for the briefest of moments.

This time, when Sebastian breathes a low, contented _“I love you”_ as he pulls away, he can blame it on the moment, or the fact that Kurt just told someone he loved them and he deserved to hear it back from at least one person today.

* * *

_iv._

_~~Dear Kurt,~~ _  
_Kurt,_

_~~Hi.~~ _

_~~Remember when we met and you we pretty much despised each other at first sight? Doesn’t it feel like a thousand years ago, being idiotic, petty teenagers who spent way too much time drinking overpriced coffee and hating each other for no reason other than because we liked the same boy? (Well, we still spend a lot of time drinking overpriced coffee, but I don’t think it would be possible for me to hate you at this point. Except when you beat me in Super Smash Brothers because that shit’s just not right.)~~ _

_~~I’m not good with words. You can attest to this—it’s why I’m a graphic design major, not a poet.~~ _

_~~goddddddddd sebastian get your shit together you can do this~~ _

_~~Every time I try to picture my life without you, I can’t do it. It’s like I didn’t exist before you came along. Sometimes I truly don’t think I did. That bitter, cynical boy who hated the world but wanted it anyway? That wasn’t really me. I came to life through you: your smile your fuckfuckfuck no this is fucking awful, what kind of romance novel bullshit~~ _

_~~Sometimes when I think of you, I can’t breathe.~~ _

_~~Happy graduation! I hope you no shut up this is a heartfelt letter not a Hallmark card~~ _

_~~I love you so much it terrifies me.~~ _

_~~Sincerely,~~ _  
_~~Yours,~~ _  
_~~Love,~~ _  
_\- Sebastian_

Sebastian folds the paper he’s been writing on for the better part of the last hour back into the neat tri-fold he’d started with, slides it down the edge of the counter, and groans heavily. It’s two o’clock in the morning, six hours before Kurt’s college graduation and he can’t sleep, too jittery and nervous to even try. Even Chai winding around his ankles and meowing in her tiny, scratchy voice as he makes his way to his bedroom can’t calm him down.

In the second drawer of his bedside table, hidden beneath a stack of old books he’s never read, is a package of cigarettes that has only been opened three times, when he was so stressed he couldn’t control himself. He bought them at the liquor store on the corner by his old dorm when he was eighteen and friendless and excruciatingly lonely, and a week later he bumped into Kurt in the subway station and hid them away. The box didn’t open again until two years later when he got the call from his mother that his father had suffered a brain hemorrhage and didn’t even make it to the hospital. He smoked half the pack that night before Kurt found him on the roof, crushed the cigarette beneath his foot, and held Sebastian to his chest for hours, letting him cry until he was gasping for breath and the sun was peeking over the horizon.

Now he grabs one of the few remaining sticks and the lighter and walks back up to the roof, lighting it up and slowly breathing out a mouthful of smoke. The cigarettes have been stale and terrible-tasting for years, but he still smokes it down to the filter before stubbing it out beneath his shoe and laying on his back to watch the stars.

He doesn’t know why he’s so afraid and so desperate to tell Kurt _now_ . They’re both staying in NYC after graduation: Kurt’s got a job lined up at an off-off-Broadway theater so he can get hands-on experience with set design while he writes his own plays, and Sebastian is going to keep his secretary job until he can get a gig doing actual graphic design work in the city. There’s just something about right now, now that they’re both graduating and growing up and moving on with their lives, that almost begs for a gesture like this.

When he walks back into the apartment, he brushes the letter into the trashcan at the edge of the counter so it falls name side up. Kurt is coming by tomorrow night to watch movies after his family heads back to Ohio (and who are they kidding, they’ll fall asleep halfway through the first).

If he sees the letter in the garbage, it’s addressed to him anyway. If he can tell Sebastian means it, well.

That’s what it was written for, right?

* * *

_v._

Kurt asks him on a date on the Fourth of July.

It comes and goes in a completely unceremonious flash of “what are you doing tomorrow?” “nothing, why?” and “want to go on a date?”, and when Sebastian nods and they kiss, sweet and slow and happy, Kurt’s coworkers around them at the party hoot and holler until they pull back, smiling dopily.

The date itself is unlike any other either of them have been on. They know each other inside and out by now so there’s no awkward small talk and no getting to know each other, only the after-bits, where they hold hands in the movie theater lobby and push the armrest between their seats up so they can lean against each other during the film and kiss when the credits start to roll. Like usual, Kurt invites him upstairs when they get to his building, but this time there’s the lurking promise of something more in his voice.

They have sex for the first time that night on Kurt’s couch while rewatching Zombieland for the hundredth time, and Sebastian has to mute it because they both start laughing mid-prep when Bill Murray gets shot and it almost kills the moment. Kurt gasps when Sebastian is inside him, a beautiful rush of soft breath, hands scrabbling for purchase on his back, scratching light lines down his spine. Sebastian learns that Kurt likes to cuddle after sex, and he’s never been much of a cuddler, but watching Kurt’s eyes flutter beneath his lids while his lips curl into a sleepy smile is a sight to behold, and he couldn’t even dream of moving out of his grip.

“I love you,” he whispers against Kurt’s temple where the sweat is beginning to dry against his hairline once Kurt’s breath starts coming in slower bursts. Sebastian’s heart climbs into his throat when Kurt shifts closer after the words are spoken, but he doesn’t say a word, just keeps that same sleepy smile.

* * *

_vi._

Sebastian’s phone rings when he’s at work and he feels the urge to buy a new box of cigarettes when Melanie, one of the women from Kurt’s theater, tells him that Kurt is in the hospital. She assures him quickly that it’s nothing serious, just a fractured wrist from a tumble on the way down the ladder from the rafters, but Sebastian hightails it out of the building with only the slightest warning to his new boss.

Kurt is half-asleep in the hospital bed when Sebastian shows up, sleepy and bandaged but _alive_ . He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he wipes his face and his sleeve comes back damp.

“Why y’cryin’?” Kurt mumbles, dazed from the pain medicine. “M’alive, s’just my wrist.”

“I know, it’s stupid, I just can’t be too careful after my dad, y’know?” Sebastian laughs despite himself. He leans forward to take hold of Kurt’s non-injured hand. “I love you so much, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Kurt mumbles something incoherent in response and falls asleep too quickly to say anything more.

* * *

_vii._

Sebastian takes a cue from Kurt all those months ago: if he’s going to properly tell Kurt he loves him, for real this time, he’s got to make it happen himself. He reserves a table at the nicest restaurant in the area, buys a bottle of the most expensive champagne they have to offer, and he wears a goddamned _tie_ because he wants this to be romantic, like every movie he’s ever watched has shown him.

Except it’s not right. The perfect night out with Kurt doesn’t include all the frills and bells and whistles he’s put into tonight, the perfect night out with Kurt is all about _them_ , not about the money they’re spending, the food they’re eating, or the clothes they’re wearing.

He doesn’t say it, but he means it when he takes Kurt’s hand on the way to the exit.

* * *

_viii._

They’re brushing their teeth before bed that night when Sebastian can’t hold it back anymore. He spits his toothpaste in the sink, rinses his mouth out, and blurts, “I love you.”

There’s not even a beat. Kurt pushes onto his toes to kiss the corner of his mouth and whispers, “I love you too.”


End file.
